


Our (Dirty) Little Secret

by Nell65



Series: Big World [1]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: F/M, Het, Ice Mechanic, Very Het, very
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-24
Updated: 2016-09-24
Packaged: 2018-08-17 02:46:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,830
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8127386
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nell65/pseuds/Nell65
Summary: Oh, whatever shall you do, when an unexpected lockdown traps you in a tiny room with your naked lover? (Definitely explicit. Pay attention to the warning!)This little fic popped into my head when prompts from two different lists crossed midstream.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Always, Jeanie205, you make everything better.

“Shit.” Roan rattled the door release one last time, then banged his open palm against the unmoving metal. It made a loud, hollow ‘thwang’ – but it still wouldn’t open for him, no matter how many curse words he borrowed from her.

“I told you,” Raven repeated. She rearranged the light blanket pulled across her torso, half modesty, half warding off a faint post-sex chill, tucking it more firmly around herself as she reclined against her pillow. “We’re on lockdown. The door won’t open until the acid rain passes.”

He turned his glare on her. With his jaw thrust out and his shoulders drawn back, his hands half-clenching at his sides, he looked like he was barely restraining himself from punching someone in the neck, if only he could find someone to punch. 

Not that she’d ever seen him punch anyone, in the neck or anywhere else. But she had seen Clarke’s impressive, if slightly wobbly due to excessive moonshine, reenactment of Roan punching various people.

“I didn’t hear the klaxon,” he declared. As though only his hearing it would have made it so.

“Because your dick was halfway down my throat at the time,” she retorted, staring him down.

He dropped his gaze first, his mouth pulled into something between a self-conscious smirk and embarrassed grimace. 

Raven knew what he was feeling. Under other circumstances she would relish knowing she could render Roan, King of Azgeda, briefly insensible to the world beyond her mouth. But that pleasure was sadly undercut by the ridiculous situation in which they now found themselves.

Sensing he was gathering himself to say something else no doubt equally stupid, she rushed to cut him off. “And if you’re about to complain that I didn’t say anything, think that through one more time.”

He held his peace for about eight seconds. Which was four seconds longer than Raven had given him in her head. So he probably had been about to say something stupid, and it was taking him a few seconds more to come up with an alternative.

When he finally did speak he asked, in a tone striving for reasonable, “How long until this passes?”

“I don’t know. The last one was a false alarm, over in thirty minutes or so. But the lockdown before that lasted six hours.”

“Six hours?” He was visibly appalled.

“It’s your stupid planet trying to kill us.”

“So I’m stuck here, trapped in this room, for the next six hours?” His furious glare took in her and the door both, as though they offended him equally.

Raven folded her arms over her chest and glowered at him. “Well fuck you too, your majesty.”

He refocused on her. “I have things I’m supposed to be doing. This,” he waved his hand in her general direction, “was supposed to be a,” and his lips twisted into a flat sour line, “a ‘quickie’ in between meetings.”

“And fuck you again,” Raven said, feeling more irritated and offended by the second.

“I did fuck you. Already.”

“Good thing. Because it’s not looking likely you’ll do it again, any time soon.”

“Raven….!” 

His growl was full of enough irritation that he must have heard it himself, because he stopped abruptly rather than continuing any further.

“Yes?” she smiled as sickly sweet as she could while she used her best, ‘one more wrong step and I’ll gut you’ tone.

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Then, with a sharp exhale and a quick little shake, he forced his hands open and his shoulders down into their normal position. 

When he opened his eyes, he stepped closer. In the tiny confines of her room, one long-since partitioned fraction of one the original engineering crew quarters on Alpha station, this effectively halved the distance between them. 

When he addressed her this time, his voice was much gentler. “I’m happy to spend six hours in your company. I just didn’t expect it to be these particular six hours. Or,” he swung his head to look around, not much masking his disdain, “in this particular closet.”

Raven pushed herself up and into a sitting position, mindful not to fall out of her narrow built-in bed. Wrapping herself more firmly into a blanket sarong, she said tartly, “Well, we can’t all be kings, and get the big fancy guest quarters.”

“You have an incredibly limited imagination if you think the room I’ve been assigned is ‘big’ or ‘fancy’,” he snapped, completely undercutting his previous effort at gallantry. 

Raven raised her brow. “You need a shovel over there, so you can dig yourself just a little deeper?”

“But,” he went on, ignoring her, “it’s a larger room than this and you could be sharing it with me instead of insisting that we keep this arrangement,” he made the face he always did when he used another word or phrase he’d picked up from her, “our little secret.”

“This _arrangement_ ,” she repeated, faintly stung by the way she really didn’t like that word in his mouth, “might not be a thing, secret or otherwise, much longer.”

“Because I don’t want to be trapped here?” Now he had the gall to look offended.

“Normal people find it hot when they are unexpectedly trapped with their naked lovers. You apparently can’t wait to get back to your meeting to argue more about planting schedules and weather patterns!” She didn’t bother to disguise how very resentful she was feeling right about now.

He raised his brow at her, and spoke slowly and carefully. “If we can’t get in a harvest before the rains and clouds block the sun, none of us will survive much past midwinter.” 

Raven did not like Patronizing Roan. 

Or, when Patronizing Roan was talking at her, anyway. She tended to agree with Patronizing Roan when he was disparaging other people for being idiots. She was often glad someone had the power to say what she was thinking, and without earning a scolding from Dr. Abby for his ‘tone.’ 

Both aspects, that he was being a dick and that she often liked him like that, pissed her right the fuck off at the moment. 

“I’m supposed to be working on hydroponics, which will let us eat year round!” she shot back. “You’re not the only one with important work to do. But you don’t see me clawing the walls trying to get out.” She paused, and then glowered dramatically. “Yet.”

The sudden static from the wall intercom above the bed drew their attention. “Raven? Are you in your quarters?”

Mighty glad of the distraction, she reached over and hit the speaker button on the wall beside her bed. “Yes.”

“Whew. Okay,” Bellamy’s voice relaxed. “You weren’t in your workshop, so Wick got worried.”

“Is he in my workshop?! Tell him to keep his hands off of my shit.” 

“No, he’s not. But there was no answer when we called.”

Raven had been avoiding looking over at Roan since she answered the intercom, but now the thin mattress sank under her feet as he sat down at end of the bed. He scooted backwards across the narrow space, sitting crosswise at the bottom of her mattress to lean his shoulders into wall, appearing directly in her line of sight. 

“Wick?” he mouthed exaggeratedly, while raising his eyebrows nearly to his hairline. And no matter how many times he retied his shoulder-length hair, two strands always seemed to magically fall to either side to frame his face just so, emphasizing his strong, angular features and setting off his raised scars.

The faded blue of his undershirt made his eyes seem particularly bright in the harsh light of her bunk. It was also sleeveless. She angrily pushed down her impulse to lean forward enough that she could sink her teeth into the hard curve of his bicep.

The half-mocking, half-serious question she read in his face had nothing to do with the color of his shirt or the size and strength of his arms.

Raven narrowed her eyes at him in what she hoped was the universal signal to shut the fuck up, pressed the button and said to Bellamy, “Is this real, or another false alarm?”

“Real. Sorry. They weren’t sure if this one was going to move this far inland, but with the heat and humidity, then all the regular rain yesterday combined with last night’s cold front, and an acid fog got sucked into the lee of the mountains. Now it’s turning to black rain. And the front seems to be building. It’s going to be at least three or four hours until it starts to clear.”

“Okay. Thanks.” Raven lifted her hand from the intercom, settled it into her lap and then squared her shoulders to look at Roan. “Yes?”

“I thought Wick was still away,” he said conversationally.

“He got back two days ago and why do you care?”

“I don’t. I thought you didn’t either.”

“Right. I don’t. Because if it was a big deal, then maybe I would have said something.”

“Or maybe it is a big deal, which is why you didn’t tell me your former lover had returned? Either last night when I arrived, or just this morning when you invited me here? Maybe that’s why you still refused to actually sleep in my bed?”

It was exactly why she wouldn’t sleep in Roan’s bed. Not because she wanted to be with Wick, not at all. But because actually sleeping together was what had ruined their relationship, moving it from a low-key no-stress take-our-time thing to serious and intense and weird and uncomfortable. She didn’t want the same thing to happen all over again now. Something she felt was still none of Roan’s business. 

“He’s a friend. He’s back safely. His mission was a minor success. These are all a hell of a lot more important than the fact that he and I fucked around a little bit a long time ago. A hell of a long time before I took pity on you, looking lost at a party in your own fucking honor.”

He had been sitting alone, almost in the shadows. It had been very late, the bonfire was dying down, the music had stopped, even his own people had drifted away from him to pair off as the evening wore on and the whiskey from the southern clans flowed ever more freely. She’d sat down beside him and refilled his glass. Telling herself she just didn’t want to be seen drinking alone, and that if she engaged in a little good will diplomacy at the same time, all for the sake of Arkadia, it was a win win for everyone. How exactly she’d ended up in strange tent with her legs around his ears remained something of a mystery. 

That it had happened again after that, and again, until it became a kind of a habit, was not. 

“A long time? You’ve only been on the ground since last fall,” he pointed out, Patronizing Roan making an unwelcome comeback.

“It was before ALIE,” she snapped. Then she dropped her eyes. Some demons could be summoned just when you mentioned their names. “Might as well be the fucking dark ages,” she muttered to her knees.

Roan regarded her in silence for a moment, then reached over to wrap his warm hand loosely around her ankle, gently stroking her skin with his thumb. She realized it was a kind of apology, and it felt nice, anchoring her here, in the present and pulled her out of the past, so she didn’t shake him off. 

“You’re right,” he said eventually. “That was a long time ago. I was still banished, and my mother and Lexa were on their thrones and the Mountain Men ruled this part of the world.”

He waited until she raised her eyes to his face to say, “I’m sorry I snapped at you. I wasn’t prepared for the idea that the killing fogs have started the acid rains, or that this could happen as a result.” He gestured with his free hand, taking in her small room.

“Being trapped in closets?” She asked him, mollified by his apology but not wanting to let him know too soon.

“Ye-eess,” he drawled out his answer. Then he tilted his chin and offered her a small smile. “Of course, I’m lucky enough to be trapped with my naked lover. Who took pity on me once, at a party. And,” he flicked his glance down at the mattress between them, “has a very tiny bed.”

“Which is why I’ve never invited you to share it.”

“Because there’s no room?”

“Because there’s no room,” she agreed, bracing her feet against his thigh, pretending to be playful but really trying hard to shove him off the end of the bed, confident that he would retaliate rather than retreat. He liked a challenge.

“Raven! What are you doing?”

“Pushing you off my bed. Since you don’t like it.”

He twisted around and crawled over her, wiping out any leg strength advantage on her part by tangling his legs with hers.

“If I’m on top, there’s plenty of room,” he said, snaking an arm around her waist and pulling her down onto her back and underneath him.

“Hey!” Raven exclaimed, pushing at his chest as he lowered himself onto her, but she wasn’t trying to throw him off and they both knew it. 

Whatever she might have said next was muffled by his kiss. And the next one, and the one after that.

Kissing him was still new enough to carry the heady sense of something fresh and exciting, while practiced enough that they didn’t bump noses or foreheads or chins anymore. She knew how he’d turn his head and when to shift her own. 

His mouth was warm, and generous, and he pulled carefully at her lips, using his teeth to tease and tempt, suggesting an impulse for roughness he’d sublimated as strength instead. 

He’d left bruises on her, sometimes. Since they’d started this… whatever. Arrangement. Secret fucking. She’d found marks from his fingers on her hips and waist, love bites on her thighs and her tits. Her skin healed fast, and they’d never been deep enough to last long, just long enough for him to kiss the next time. 

Until he’d had to leave for Azgeda, and she hadn’t been sure if they would ever hook up again.

She’d done her best to mark him back, but his skin was tougher than hers and she didn’t like to leave scratches. He been scarred enough already by this world. His whole body was a testament to just how hard life on Earth was. She didn’t want to add any more. So she treasured those few small, quickly-fading bruises she’d been able to leave on the soft, pale hollows below the jut of his hips, or the tender skin high up under his arms.

He’d already left a fresh bruise on her skin today, she knew, where the swell of her hip faded into her ass, just above the old injury from Murphy’s wild shots. He’d worked out the worst of the knots there, driving hard with his thumbs until the pain faded and the relief began. Then he’d dropped to his knees behind her and bent his head to suck the spot until she was sure it had purpled, one of his big hands sliding up between her legs, stroking and smoothing and circling her clit, his thumb pressing up inside her, while she clung whimpering to the edge of her bed. Her orgasm had buckled her knees. 

Now, while his mouth covered hers, his hands were still busy, pressing and stroking down her sides, across her tits and down around her hips, pulling her legs free from beneath him and up around to cradle himself between her thighs. 

She wrapped her legs around his, catching her toes in the rough fabric of his trousers, and buried her fingers in his thick hair. She pressed open-mouthed kisses to his lips, and dragged her teeth lightly across his chin, and his cheeks, placed soft kisses on his brow, along his temples and then back to his mouth again. Her hips were already moving, rocking just a little as she arched into him, seeking that sweet friction that would start the fire in her veins. All the frustrations she had with him, with their situation, with the stupid fog and the terrifying rain, rapidly fading before the rising tide of lust.

He snaked his hand up under her blanket, and began to work it free, tugging it out from around her. He used the movement to break away from her mouth, nosing his way down the side of her neck, working his lips and tongue across her collarbone and between her breasts, goose bumps rising along her skin in his wake. When he finally succeeded in stripping the blanket away, he simply dropped it onto the floor.

He kissed his way down to her belly before dragging his tongue back up, tracing a swooping line from her navel to her chest, and further. Curling up and around to circle the areolae he alternately licked and blew gently, making her shiver. Then he drew the nipple of one breast into his mouth while he played with the other, rolling it between his thumb and forefinger.

Raven arched back, digging in her heels, pressing up and into him, rolling her cunt across the erection she could feel through his trousers, running her hands along his broad back. She felt both vulnerable and wanton, like this. More turned than she’d have ever imagined by being stark naked while he was still fully clothed. The result was dripping down her ass to spread damply under her hips.

He skimmed his palm back down her side, shifting his weight enough to slip his hand between them and scrape his fingers gently through her pubic hair, tugging and twisting. She moaned deep in her chest as little sparks of pleasure radiated out from his fingers, electrifying the nerves from her cunt to her tits. 

When his fingers moved lower, ghosting along the outer edges of her labia, she stifled her cry by biting into the soft fabric of his shirt.

When he finally drove one finger, and then two inside her, she squirmed as much as she could to press her clit against anything she could find, bucking into him to encourage him to assist her right damn now, and grinding hard against his hand.

He ignored her, instead drawing his fingers out and plunging them in, pumping slower the more she squirmed, faster when she stilled. The wet sucking and slapping sound was loud in her tiny room, overwhelming her quiet, stifled cries. 

She raked her hands down to catch the hem of his shirt, sliding her palms up along the hard lines of his abs, curling her fingertips to scratch her rough nails against his skin as she drove for the fastening on his trousers, determined to tease him as thoroughly as he was teasing her. He helped by sitting up on his knees, pulling his shirt off by tugging the neck off over his head. 

While his hands were occupied, she got her hands on the waistband of his trousers, pulling the old zipper aside and digging out his big cock, already hard enough it bobbed up as soon as it was freed from his clothes. She curled her fingers around the base of it, gripping firmly as she started to work him slowly, payment and promise in exchange for his fingers inside her. 

She was debating curling up to suck the pink tip into her mouth, when he pushed his fingers back into her, probing deeply for the spot that made her spine snap into a bow when he pressed into it. She flung her free arm over her head to brace herself against the wall, driving herself as far onto his fingers as she could, opening her legs so wide the one on the outer edge fell off and she searched in vain with her toes for purchase on the edge of one of the built-in drawers.

In the bright full light of her quarters she could see everything. He was watching her through heavy lidded eyes, a slit of bright blue gleaming. She trailed her gaze from the broad square lines of his shoulders, down the heavy curve of his pectoral muscles and each separate line of his abs, to the paler, hairless skin of his lean hips and flanks. 

His cock, broad and long, nestled below a thatch of brown curls, his full sac hanging lower, almost red and very soft against the more darkly tan skin of his thighs, or the bunched fabric of his dark grey trousers. He was aroused enough now that the slick pink head of his dick had fully emerged, the vein along the bottom pressing against her palm and the hard lip of the edge of the glans beginning to form.

He was so pretty it made her heart pound just a little harder.

Whimpering from want, she drew her bottom lip between her teeth and dragged it out slowly. His hips moved toward her, almost, she was sure, instinctively and not entirely under his own control. Continuing to drag her fist up and back along his cock, she started tugging him, imperceptibly but inexorably, she hoped, closer. Hinting that he exchange his fingers for his cock and just fuck her already.

Instead he leaned over her, pressed his mouth to hers in a long wet kiss, then rolled easily off the bed. He kicked off his boots and shed his trousers, and Raven smiled. Thinking she knew what came next.

She didn’t. He slipped around to the end of her bed, caught her by her calves and pulled her towards him with a quick jerk. He didn’t stop pulling until her ass was right at the end of the mattress, jammed up against his thighs, and her legs were splayed high against his chest. 

“Okay?” He asked, looking down at her left hip, then raising his eyes back to hers.

“Okay,” she gasped, nodding. Because it was. It was fine.

Better than fine.

When he dropped his hands to span her waist and hips to hold her still, then drove his cock inside her, she was pretty sure she’d never felt anyone hit her so deeply. Not even him. When he pulled out and then surged back in with another flex of his hips, she was definitely sure he hit the edge of her cervix. 

She’d always thought that was something that would hurt. Instead the contact re-centered her pleasure from her cunt to deep inside, the same strange pleasure pain of pressing into a healing bruise. She also felt full, more full of cock than she’d ever been in her life and it felt…. good. Really, really good.

The only thing missing was pressure on her tits, but she still had the use of her hands and really, she knew best of all what she wanted. What pressure, what twists, when to pinch and when to stroke and when to grip.

She didn’t move much more after that, wanting only to lie still and let him fuck into her. So she did, closing her eyes and sinking into the dark, quiet place. The place where the only things that mattered in the whole entire world were the feel of his skin sliding under her legs as he moved, her hands on her own tits, squeezing and pinching and rolling her thumbs over her nipples, the way his sac slapped against her ass, and most centrally of all, the weight of his cock as he surged into her, stretching, filling, lifting her.

A part of her would have stayed in that space forever, but her body eventually demanded more. She slid one hand down from her tits and across her belly to her cunt, pausing for a few seconds to press into her flesh around the base of his cock, soaking her fingers before she dragged them back up, circling around her clit and then pushing down, using her fingers to simulate the rocking she couldn’t do with her hips. 

When he suddenly pulled out altogether, she felt empty and bereft and cold. But before she could complain, he dropped his shoulders, pulled her hand away and closed his mouth directly over her clit. She promptly fisted her hand in his hair.

With her knees draped over his shoulders now, she could move a little more freely. Under the direct stimulation of his tongue beating out the same rhythm on her clit as her fingers, the orgasm that she’d been holding at bay built to the tipping point. 

Red streaks shot through darkness behind her closed eyelids as the blood pounded in her chest, in her head, in her ears.

Only the lifelong discipline of fucking quietly and on the sly kept her from crying out, and her breathing was loud and harsh and tinged with a whine.

And then the wave crested and crashed over, and Raven felt like she was coming apart from the inside out, her legs trembling with the intensity of it. 

When the storm passed, she flopped back down and sighed happily, raising her eyes to his. She grinned up at him. “Hi.” 

“Hi,” he replied, his answering smile as soft and happy as she felt.

She glanced down at his bobbing erection. “We have to do something about that.”

He nodded, his smile growing wider. “Yes.”

She wiggled backwards, until she had her head and shoulders adjusted on her pillow. Then she raised her knees and let her legs fall open, mindful of the small width of her bed, and held up her arms to gesture him in. “Come on, then.”

He responded immediately, crawling up and over her before settling into her arms, her legs, and finally, into her cunt.

She wrapped her arms around his shoulders and drew him down into a kiss.

He fucked into her slowly at first, until he found the speed and rhythm he wanted. It was nice, the feeling of his body sliding along and into hers, and it was all she expected. Then to her surprise she felt her own nerves lighting back up – a pale echo of before but definitely tingling. 

After that she got a little more engaged, working on gripping him with her internal muscles when he pulled out, opening up for him when he plunged back in, shifting around a little to get a better angle on things at her end, rewarded by his speed picking up and her own small pleasure growing.

He didn’t last that much longer, and once he was spent, he moved off her, sliding into the impossibly narrow slot between her body and the wall. He was so broad, the muscles in his arms and shoulders so heavy, she could still be surprised by how lean he really was. This didn’t change the length of his arms and legs, which were draped across her, holding her in place.

So she dragged his hand to her clit and finished herself off one last time, doing something like ninety percent of the work herself for a small little thrill, but it was satisfying all the same.

After that, Raven’s eyes drifted closed. She felt still and sleepy and stupid from pleasure. So sleepy and stupid it took her several long heartbeats to process that Roan had kissed her temple before setting his head onto his own shoulder, his other arm and leg growing heavier across her body as he relaxed, and his breathing slowed and deepened.

“Wait!” she cried softly, trying to struggle upright, but his arm and leg wouldn’t move.

Pushing fruitlessly at his forearm she turned her head to glare at him. He didn’t respond because his eyes were already closed. 

“You aren’t going to sleep here!” she hissed.

A pair of sleepy blue yes opened and he regarded her quietly for a while. Then he said, “Yes. I am. Why not?”

“Well…! I don’t want to sleep with you!”

“I’m not Wick, Raven.”

He wasn’t. She knew that. He wasn’t remotely like Wick. Aside from the natural born arrogance anyway. Gods knew she had a type. Opinionated, bossy, full of themselves. A little wild. Risk taking. Bad men.

No, she immediately corrected herself. They weren’t bad men. Finn was a boy who never had the chance to discover what kind of man he would have been. Wick was a good man who wanted a good relationship with a good woman. 

But that wasn’t who she was. She was a brilliant woman and a good friend, but she wasn’t a good person. She also wasn’t looking for a relationship with anyone.

Hooking up on the down low with the king of Azgeda had been a completely different story. He didn’t need or particularly want some sort of deep relationship either, and if he wasn’t a very good man, it looked like he was working hard to be a good king. A good king with a side of jealous asshole. 

Who had never asked her to be anyone other than who she was, intentionally or unintentionally.

“No,” she conceded. “You aren’t anyone but yourself.”

His drowsy smirk was sweetly triumphant, and in a faint huff she wiggled around and onto her side, facing away from him.

He wrapped his arm more snugly around her, pulling her closer to spoon back into him. And seemed to fall asleep almost instantly thereafter.

She was determined not to fall asleep herself. That would be just too much, and anyway, it was hardly comfortable, perched on her side and worried that without the barrier of his arm and leg holding her in place, she would pitch out onto the floor.

The next thing she knew was the sensation of trying to crawl out of the deep, deep well of heavy slumber, summoned by the squawking of her intercom.

“Raven? Raven? Are you awake?”

It was Bellamy, and there was definitely a note of concern in his voice.

There was an ungainly scramble as she struggled to turn over without falling off her bed, or elbowing Roan in the face, but she finally managed to push the button over Roan’s shoulder.

“What?”

“Did you see Roan at all today?”

Nearly nose-to-nose, she exchanged a worried glance with the man in question. “What? Why?” 

“No one can find him, but we really need him.” 

Worry shifting into alarm, she checked the clock. It had been nearly five hours since the klaxon sounded. It must be late afternoon or early evening outside.

“Has something happened?” she asked.

“We think an Azgeda party got burned by the rain. We weren’t expecting anyone today, but we’ve got the drones out doing sweeps now and there are loose horses, still all saddled up. We don’t have any good angles and they’re up under trees, but it looks like Azgeda brands on their flanks. Anyway. This morning, did you see…”

Before Bellamy could finish his question, Roan pressed his thumb over hers on the button. “I’m right here, Bellamy. Let me out of this room. I need to see whatever you’re seeing.”

There was a long pause.

Then, Bellamy’s voice came again. “Door lock is off. Can you find your way to command?”

“Raven will show me.”

“Okay.” 

The intercom fell silent. 

They dropped their hands together. His landed on her hip, hers flat against his chest. Momentarily frozen by discovery, they simply lay still and searched each other’s faces, each of them apparently hoping for the other to make the first move. 

Running through a dozen different scenarios in her head, trying to game out all the various ways she could explain why she had been keeping company with Roan during this lockdown, Raven finally circled back to ask the only question that mattered to her, “Are we lovers?” 

His answer was immediate and sure. “Yes.” 

Then he frowned. “Is this question a trap?”

“No!”

He implied a shrug with a tilt of his eyes. “You Skaikru have strangely complicated courtship habits.”

Almost surprised into laughter, and fully aware that he’d been willing to go along with her request that they keep their relationship – their love affair – quiet, even if he did think it was strange, Raven said, “Okay. Maybe. A little. And no. Not a trick question.” She glanced toward the intercom over his shoulder. “I’ll have to say something. We both will. They’ll ask.”

“Then, yes. Lover is a term I would choose.”

“Okay,” Raven nodded. “That’s good. Lovers.” She rolled the word on her tongue. Testing it out. Deciding that she liked the feel of it. The way it slipped softly over her lips. She said it again. “We’re lovers.”

His gleaming smile had grown so wide, watching her, that his eyes actually crinkled up, laugh lines rearranging his face from grave to charming.

Feeling a little under assault from all this unexpected happiness, Raven groused, “Look, lover sounds way better than, ‘my boyfriend, the king.’ That would make me sound like an eleven-year-old drunk on fairy tales.”

“So, you wouldn’t like me to say ‘my girlfriend who fell from the stars’?”

“Are you planning on taking up bad poetry as a hobby while we wait out the next apocalypse?”

He actually laughed, bright and bold and oddly thrilling. 

She rolled away to tumble gracelessly out of bed to dress, avoiding landing on her ass only because he caught and steadied her.

Finally, after strapping on her knee brace, Raven stood up and asked, “Is the bed in your room really bigger?”

He raised his brows, clearly surprised, but he answered willingly enough, his head cocked in curiosity, his hand hovering over the door latch. “Yes. Much. And marginally more comfortable.” 

“Then fine. You can invite me to share it tonight. If you’d like to.”

“I can?” His lips twitched, but he did not quite smile.

“Yes,” she said. “You can. Assuming you’re not gone all night, looking for your people, and that they found a safe place to hole up and wait it out.”

His expression sobered immediately. “Of course.” He raised his eyes to hers. “Assume I make it back, and my people are well. When I invite you to stay with me, what will you say?”

Raven raised her chin. “I’ll say ‘thank you, I accept’.”

He nodded slowly, and his expression didn’t change much. Raven worried for a gut-clenching moment if she’d misunderstood everything and played her cards all wrong.

Then he tilted his head and smiled, slow and pleased and more than a little bit smug. “And so we move from ‘our little secret’ to…..?”

Raven felt her cheeks heat, but buoyed by the satisfaction she read in his eyes, she answered without hesitation, “Something not so secret after all.”


End file.
